


the day after salvation

by Anonymous



Category: Silmaril (Glowfic), The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Missing Scene, all the rape and torture are offscreen backstory this fic is family friendly, even more fun trivia this is technically twilight fic, fun trivia this is animorphs fic but no one'll search that tag for this, no the relationship and fandom tags are not redundant, no the relationship tags are not duplicated or mistaken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 06:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12648234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: All they are is strangers who fit each other's empty arms. (Midnight and Eagle in destruction of property.)





	the day after salvation

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, Square, without you I would have never posted this for fear of spending an absurd amount of time panicking not knowing what fandoms to tag it as.

Nothing needs to be done. The peal has swooped in to fix everything that can be fixed and… and everything that’s still wrong is unfixable and there’s no need for Fingon to do anything right now. So he doesn’t.

It’s… it’s a surprise. A genuine surprise. Whether it would be worth it compared to not existing, whether it would be the best choice… wouldn’t have mattered, wasn’t going to matter when Mandos finally released him. Not _being_ was never on the table, so Maedhros would have pulled himself together, and Fingon never kidded himself that it would be fast, that it wouldn’t be centuries or more, but he’d been sure, he’d had every reason to be sure, some day in fifty thousand years Maedhros would whine about how annoying it was that everyone in Tirion knew better than to play Governor with him and he would invite Fingon to go poke dinosaurs, just the two of them—

—and neither of them would’ve known why they used to spend so much time alone with each other—

—and in a million years they’d tell their great-great-great grandkids about the war, maybe, and by then it’d be so far away Maedhros would laugh about it, it’d be just a scary story even to him—

—and that’s not going to happen. He’ll never get better, never be happy, never laugh, never suddenly look at Fingon in the middle of a discussion of tax policy like Fingon is water in the desert, never—

Never _hurt_. Never soldier on through another day hating every minute. Never fake a neutral smile and call Fingon “my prince” and tactfully not ask when he’s planning to turn into Sauron and rape him again.

There’s nothing anyone can do for him and everyone they _can_ do something for is fine now, is happy and alive and whole and healed.

So he sings and lives and grieves and remembers and gets lost in his memory and grief and singing, lets everything else fall to the peal to handle. They’re as powerful as the Valar and ten times as competent and he can just. Let them.

He’s between crying jags and doesn’t look that bad when someone appears—must be a teleporter—and he reaches out (the peal all keep private thoughts, even the humans, he checked, he’s not intruding) and feels the comedown after a battle and fear of pursuit and burning desperate painful loneliness. No specific thoughts, just emotions.

The traveler knocks and Fingon rouses himself enough to go answer the door and…

…And he stands there speechless because that’s Maedhros, it’s—

—It’s not Maedhros, not the scarred hopeless constantly suffering man who held out grimly at Himring for centuries of endless war; it’s Maitimo, undamaged, whole, looking like he did before everything fell apart.

…Maedhros looked whole, too, at the end, his body new and perfect; it doesn’t mean anything.

The _other_ Maitimo, who is _not his Maedhros_ , breaks the silence.

"Hi. We haven't met and - I don't know how much you've been told but - can I have a hug?"

No, I’d never hug my dead traumatized boyfriend that I was in the middle of singing a love song for, Fingon doesn’t say. He hugs him.

It’s not Maedhros and that’s surprisingly easy to tell once they’re actually touching. Maedhros was so scared of this for so long, and then he was dead, and then he was newly alive and limp and numb and could barely hold his own head up when Fingon held him and didn’t move at all except very deliberately. This one holds him tight and absently runs his fingers over Fingon’s back and brushes carelessly against his hair. It’s a while before Fingon asks about what he mentioned before, but eventually he does.

"Been told about what." He tries for a question but it doesn’t come out that way, just flat and tired.

The other Maitimo stumbles through something that someone who had never met Maitimo before might have mistaken for a very poor attempt at an explanation. It’s exasperating in a pointless way that makes him think of low stakes and lazy days, that helps him remember more of Maedhros than grand passion and unspeakable pain and the whole breathtaking, deadly story they acted out. The other Maitimo is alive and cagey and frustrating and Maedhros isn’t any of that anymore and won’t ever be again but it’s so tempting to think that he _is_ , that he’s _here_ , this is _him_ , not whole and happy but not…

Fingon absently calls him an old nickname when he chides him and there’s an instant where it almost feels close enough and—

—and he remembers Maedhros dying, he remembers that this isn’t him—

And anyway the other Maitimo continues to say things that look vaguely like failed attempts at an explanation—doesn’t want to talk about it, obviously. Fine. Doesn’t want to say he doesn’t want to talk about it, either. Also fine.

"They have resurrection now,” he says. “…don't know if it works for Elves. Our kind of Elves, I mean."

Fingon keeps his reaction private. Even if the other Maitimo will read it off his face anyway, he doesn’t have to shove it in his face—it’s not that bad, whatever happened to the other Maitimo can’t have been that bad if he can imagine that that would help, he’s so lucky, he’s so unreasonably lucky, Fingon is jealous of him and glad for him and—

—but his voice is level when he answers. Probably doesn’t matter. His thoughts aren’t hard to guess even if they’re not available to be read.

He’s not sure if he passes some test or if the other Maitimo finds the strength to talk about it a little or what, but he gets something like an explanation. Sort of. A bit.

Fingon pushes it, asks for more, doesn’t get it. Should’ve expected that. Really wants to know, though. What happened to his alt, why the other Maitimo fears for his life even knowing there’s resurrection available, what hosts, what pain, what—but fine, he doesn’t need the other Maitimo to tell him.

"Were you - hurting like this - before that, or -"

"I've been hurting like this forever. I don't - the other ones are happy, now, they got therapy."

Fingon’s first reaction is pain so intense it doesn’t feel much like an emotion, more like a wound— _all I ever wanted_ , Maedhros said, centuries of other goals and love of life just gone in the wake of Angband—but he can think around it, he can wonder what’s going on. Why not _this_ one? Is he _generally_ unable to access peal resources?

He asks where he can read the answers, since he clearly isn’t going to get them from the other Maitimo, and the other Maitimo brushes _that_ off too, which is odd and makes him curious because none of this makes sense and he’s fundamentally wrong about something important—

—but the Maitimo in front of him is hurting and that comes first. He sings—not the song he was in the middle of before, that’d just be morbid, just something about sunlight shining through trees, the first thing that came to mind that wasn’t about Maedhros.

Eventually he invites the other Maitimo in—might as well stop standing in the door letting bugs in—and the other Maitimo takes a seat on Fingon’s bed and watches Fingon with painful desperate need that doesn’t even resemble any way Maedhros ever looked at him. It’s almost more like how Maedhros sounded at the end, asking Fingon to teleport him.

Fingon sits beside him, puts an arm around him, keeps singing. Mentions he’s taking requests, in case Maitimo wants to suggest something for the next song.

_I just want to hear your voice,_ he says.

Fingon doesn’t trust himself to improvise without making it about Maedhros somehow, so instead he thinks back to something non-magical he heard Luthien humming and sings it with mostly nonsense words. He reads Maitimo as much as Maitimo will let him. There’s relief, there’s worry, those are simple; what he’s feeling toward Fingon is happy and sad and possessive and guilty and nervous all at once. None of that has to be true, Maedhros could send remembered feelings, but he’s not sending, just not hiding, and Fingon’s getting a lot of complicated entangled emotions changing in real time in plausible ways, consistently there from the moment he started reading Maitimo.

The inside of Maitimo’s head is a mess but it looks like a fixable, temporary mess. An _easy_ mess. He _could_ be faking all this, he’s a good enough liar, but if not, he’s in much better shape than Maedhros was any time since the sun first rose.

And here he is grieving and afraid for some reason and the peal won’t help him. Won’t, Fingon realizes privately, not can’t, whatever the problem with this one is it can’t be harder than piecing Maedhros-from-438 back together and they did that.

And what _is_ this one’s problem? Not Angband, he wouldn’t feel so much publicly. Not _nothing_ , once upon a time in Valinor it was common for him to think publicly about whatever he liked about whoever he was talking to. (Whatever uncontroversial things. He never loved Findekano publicly.) He’d go totally blank during any kind of political negotiation, thoughts and emotions and even the existence of a mind in his head (Fingon spent thousands of years thinking he only did it to unnerve people), but if this meeting is political then Fingon is… confused. About a lot.

And yet, this one’s thoughts are all opaque. Makes it more likely the emotions are only public because that’s the best way to manipulate Fingon into something—not that he’ll necessarily mind the result—not that that’s any different from how _his_ Maitimo made these kinds of decisions.

He just got away from a fight, he wants Fingon to believe he was coerced into taking the side of someone powerful—granting that for a moment, it’s not _inconceivable_ a Feanorian was coerced, why wouldn’t the peal prevent that? No, maybe it’s more complicated—someone threatening him to demand something he would’ve done anyway? Regardless, now that the peal exists, why is this Maitimo in a position to be threatened at all ever? Unless he’s on the run from the peal, but then why? Not because of anything he did—they forgave Maedhros, they made his end very comfortable and he killed hundreds of thousands of people—unless they expect him to do it _again_ but he wouldn’t, they have better ways of—getting the Silmarils, he almost thinks, but doesn’t. Doesn’t feel right, it’s something else.

Fingon tries something. Very carefully, he raises his hand to Maitimo’s shoulder, then toward his hair.

Maitimo’s emotions disappear completely (oh, Fingon thinks, should’ve realized that could happen outside of Angband) but he turns his head and leans into the touch and suddenly Fingon has a handful of Maitimo’s braids.

He can reconstruct a possible motive—maybe this Maitimo wants to prove to himself that he’s not afraid after Sauron or whoever raped him, if that’s what happened, and doesn’t want Fingon reading him and seeing his lack of interest and probably worse—but then why come to the only Findekano who can’t want this? Not planning on anything, just wouldn’t back down when Fingon touched him?

He has a handful of Maitimo’s hair and he remembers so many times, with _his_ , touching him, wanting him—but he doesn’t want this one. Couldn’t even want Maedhros. Couldn’t want him even if he wanted to. The absence of feeling stings—is this what it was like for Maedhros?—but he just. Can’t. Everything about this moment is a horrible mockery of something that will never happen again.

Maitimo sends desire, encouragement.

Fingon drops his hand. _Let’s not both pretend._

_I wasn’t pretending._

Fingon’s face is very expressive when he wants it to be. Like now.

_Not wanting you isn’t the problem,_ says Maitimo.

Fingon remains visibly unconvinced. He remembers Maedhros telling him sweet things that used to be true, kissing him and sending him the memory of passion—at least then they both got _something_ out of it, Maedhros the chance to reclaim a little of what Sauron took from him, Fingon the chance to let Maedhros convince him there was something left from which they could someday rekindle what they had before. This is… not that.

_My you was all I had keeping me sane during the war,_ says Maitimo. _I don’t not want you, I—have mixed feelings—but if you don’t want to—_

They don’t need words then—they barely need osanwe, he can send a feeling and Maitimo’ll know what to do. Fingon goes and sits at the head of his bed, legs loosely crossed. Maitimo rests his head in Fingon’s lap and clasps his hands loosely behind Fingon’s back.

Fingon sings. At first he’s careful when he touches Maitimo, careful even knowing this one hasn’t been through all the same things, isn’t as broken. Maitimo doesn’t flinch, doesn’t freeze. Fingon relaxes after a while. He doesn’t reach for the ends of Maitimo’s braids to undo them, just runs his hands over them and feels them, firm and tight and perfectly neat. This Maitimo is a king, judging by his hair. How did that happen? Did his cousins come to Lake Mithrim to find him in charge and… what then?

_Tell me about your Arda?_ Fingon asks.

Maitimo sends him a memory, unnaturally sharp—must be the necklace—of a moonless night. There’s a crowd of people visible only by their body heat, most of them short—so it’s Maitimo’s memory—all of them dressed warmly but maybe not warmly enough. Fingon tries not to flinch at the cold. Maitimo’s listing names—then he finishes, and starts listing desiderata for… some way of grouping people. All Noldor, but Maitimo seems to be in command of more than Feanorians already. Fingon doesn’t understand until he hears the ships set off across the strait.

_You didn’t burn the boats,_ Fingon says.

_We didn’t kill for them, either,_ says Maitimo.

_I’m glad there are Ardas like yours._

_I like mine better than the… standard timeline._

Fingon sings something very old about the swanships, overawed sentiments in overornamented verse, only crushingly sad in retrospect.

Maitimo sends him a memory of the ships as dark shadows against the setting sun.

_I never expected to be able to brag about any of it,_ says Maitimo. _None of us had any idea how to win, we were all just—fighting for another century or another day._

_Yeah. Did you win?_

_No. We had help getting the Enemy to swear to a truce with us and then he left to bother another dimension. The peal’s chasing him._

Fingon’s not completely sure of everything they can bring to bear but he heard something about weaponized Silmarils and some kind of magic god-killing box. There’s no reason to expect they’ll have trouble with another Morgoth here or anywhere the peal knows about. He still feels sick thinking of Morgoth menacing another world. Maybe later he’ll help the peal track him down.

The peal really _hasn’t_ fixed everything. Not even _close_ , if there’s a universe with Morgoth running around. As soon as Maitimo leaves, Fingon is going to find out what’s been going on in the rest of the multiverse. He probably can’t ask this Maitimo about the peal—then again, can’t he?

_How long ago was this?_

_Ten years. Of the sun, we have a sun._

_What’ve you been doing since?_

_Laying the groundwork for my empire to survive the sudden deaths of a few rulers in a row—I received a very credible death threat—_

_Is this an ongoing concern or—_

_It’s not a situation that’d benefit from your help right now. It’s as stable as it’s going to get for a while._

Fingon sings about the migration of the Eldar to Valinor—still carefully avoiding singing about Maedhros, still carefully avoiding _saying_ that he doesn’t have his Maedhros and Maitimo doesn’t have his Findekano and all they are is strangers who fit each other’s empty arms—and stills his hand, just resting it against Maitimo’s hair.

_Want to see more of my Arda?_ Maitimo asks.

_…Sure._

Maitimo shows him places he recognizes and places he only mostly recognizes—there’s Himring, but much nicer; there’s Eithel Sirion, but built to some subtly different architectural sensibility; there’s the sun rising over the ugly makeshift wall of the camp at Lake Mithrim that no one expected they’d ever need to look at; there’s a dark, dense forest with a remnant of Beleriand’s old ecosystem from the years when it was starlit, but recently improved roads and infrastructure and there’s something odd about how the Sindar in this memory respond to Maitimo…

Fingon sends vague unsettled curiosity.

_That’s Nan Elmoth after my Findekano conquered it—our Eol was holding Irisse captive, she killed him and escaped with Lomion—_

_She lived?_

_Yours didn’t?_

Fingon tells him the story.

Maitimo tells him how his Findekano pacified Nan Elmoth.

_Why is your Arda so lucky?_

_We’re not, actually. We’re—used to bad things happening. I didn’t prevent a battle at Alqualonde because we were nicer; I knew it could happen because things like that had happened before. A lot of things were like that for us._

_You had kinslayings before Alqualonde?_

_As early as Cuivienen, the Enemy liked to talk us into warring with each other. Elven kingdoms all have crime rates, we… expect that, plan around it, it—doesn’t shock us._

Fingon strokes Maitimo’s hair and rubs his temples and tries to imagine them as cynical, battle-weary children.

_All our Valar are worse, too,_ says Maitimo. _The Enemy’s “escaped” prisoners were better at talking us into warring with each other, the others wouldn’t wait until you were dead to tamper with you—there were regular mandatory inspections in Valinor, looking for any antisocial thoughts—_

_Did they straighten you._ Fingon is suddenly not jealous of Maitimo’s Arda anymore.

_I oathed myself into not loving my you while they were looking. They were pretty cursory inspections, as long as you didn’t die you could keep your vices if you wanted to. They’re worse, but they’re still incompetent._

_They sound horrible._

_They are. The Enemy’s still dramatically worse than the others, they’re not all equally bad—_

_There’s a worse than usual Morgoth on the loose,_ says Fingon, numbly horrified.

_Yeah. Most places on the map are safe, but…_

_How many worlds are there?_

_…there’s probably a finite number…_

_Probably._

_They’re not all as bad as Ardas. And not all the Ardas suck as much as this one. There’s one where there’s no Doom and they had magic machines fight Morgoth for them._

_Good for them._

_They had help._

_Are we looking for more Ardas to help?_

_The peal might be. I haven’t been._

_They’re equipped to handle them if they find any?_

_I think they will probably be able to protect those Ardas from their Morgoths._

_That’s good._ But it’s a way of not saying no, they’re _not_ equipped to handle other Ardas. Maitimo doesn’t trust the peal and he wants Fingon to know he doesn’t trust them and he doesn’t want to talk about why that is but Fingon can probably find out later. (Is it political? It feels like someone stuck their foot in a delicate political situation but Fingon can’t think how a dozen Maitimos could manage _that_.) It might just be that Maitimo wants to cuddle without having to explain a strained international relationship. _So on a lighter note, has everyone in Beleriand learned not to play Governor with you yet?_

_Haven’t had time to play everyone, but I haven’t met anyone new who can challenge me yet._

_Maybe someday you’ll be so out of practice you’ll lose a game._

_Or maybe the next person to drop on my Arda from another world will be able to beat me._

_Do you and the other Maitimos ever…?_

_I played a Space one. I won rather narrowly—given one more turn he’d’ve convinced the king to stop listening to the recommendations of the advisor I blackmailed into swearing to take my ends as his own, but I knew he had enough evidence that I couldn’t afford to wait and convinced him to launch the flying city a day early._

So the situation’s not bad enough to prevent _that_. They’re not totally refusing to talk to each other. That’s good.

They talk for a while. Fingon pets Maitimo’s hair and remembers how to touch him to have the best chance of making him more cuddly and relaxed than aroused and that works—Maitimo sends what _might_ be his actual emotions, desperate bone-deep exhaustion mingled with relief and a comfortable fondness. _If_ that’s what’s really going on in his head, he really is in pretty good shape except for whatever terrifying thing happened today.

Fingon sends him the feeling of nothing being crushingly, horribly wrong at the moment, and he sends the confused affection he feels for this stranger who’s Maedhros but also not Maedhros.

Maitimo’s quiet and still for long enough Fingon wonders if he’s going to fall asleep. He might, if he feels safe enough here, if he doesn’t have any commitments in the next few hours or anyone waiting for him.

He does. At least, he doesn’t say anything and his breathing evens out and he goes limp and…

Fingon shifts a little, flexes a leg a little, makes things just slightly less comfortable for Maitimo because he suddenly needs a reminder that—

—Nope, Maitimo’s not moving. He feels his stomach turn over. Asleep, he tells himself, shifting a little to make both of them more comfortable. Maitimo’s asleep, is all. Not lying numb and limp and helpless in Lorien in a brief interlude between death and death. Asleep. In a bed. Because he’s tired, because he’s been off doing things, and those things upset him but didn’t make him want to stop existing.

He chokes back a sob and just breathes for a moment. Then he starts singing again, about Maedhros but not just him, about Mandos and Angband and things that shouldn’t exist, things he would put an end to if he could—things he _will_ put an end to because he _can_ —about the hope and the mercy that came too late to save Maedhros, about the worlds full of people he doesn’t know yet but is going to save for their own sake and in memory of Maedhros, people Maedhros would have wanted to meet, would have wanted to help…

He’s crying. He’s cried an uncomfortable amount lately, hours at a stretch of awful wracking sobs, interspersed with mournful singing when he can keep his voice steady. This isn’t that; this is just quiet tears rolling down his cheeks while he sings. He really thought there was a chance. There _was_ a chance, apparently, all those centuries of war—but the end of the war did what decades in Angband couldn’t.

And he’s gone forever and he’s right here and there were so many days when someone could’ve done something, something could’ve changed, and he would’ve been okay if only—but no one came to save them and nothing happened to change fate and after hundreds of years of chances it was finally too late.

He has too much space to think; his thoughts run in circles and feed off themselves and he grieves and he doesn’t move and just sings and sings and sings.

When it gets too uncomfortable to stay still, he’s careful not to disturb Maedhros too much, but not careful enough. Maitimo blinks and sits up. Fingon stops singing.

_How long—?_

_An hour, maybe less than that._

_You can keep singing._

_I’m going to go get something to drink._ Such a convenient non-answer. Maitimo’ll see right through it.

He gets himself some water. Gets Maitimo some, too. Tastes like it’d kill a human—does the peal have something for that? There are a bunch of important health interventions for humans that Fingon remembers from the war, quarantines and hand-washing and boiling water; he needs to know if the peal knows about them all. They probably do, probably heard from the Luster Fingon, but he’ll check.

He should offer Maitimo something to eat, too, but he doesn’t have much of a selection. He’s been eating nothing but lembas—it’s nutritionally complete, it doesn’t need any preparation, it lasts a very long time, and Fingon has been finding it difficult to do anything more complicated than unwrap something and toss the leaf aside. It reminds him of sieges, and of the war, and of the last centuries of Maedhros’s life, and he’s not sure if that’s part of the reason he hasn’t been trying harder to take better care of himself but it feels right to remember right now anyway.

He offers, and Maitimo’s too polite to refuse but suggests they split a cake, says he’s not that hungry, takes one bite and passes it back to Fingon.

“Tastes like the Battle of Sudden Flame,” says Fingon, because Maitimo’s not showing any signs of saying so.

“—my Arda didn’t have that one—”

“Good for you. We lost Ard-galen and the Enemy forced his way south through Lothlann. The west didn’t fall but we were under siege after that.” And he and Maedhros could reach each other from far away, that was useful, they didn’t need relays. Meant they could share news and coordinate. Also meant Fingon could know he was alive, could check any time without waiting for a messenger to somehow reach them. “We spent a lot of time stuck behind our walls wishing we could do something. And eating lembas and lichen.”

“When was that?”

“Started in 455—Luster didn’t have it either.”

“All these thrilling things we had to look forward to! I feel very vindicated in all my worries right now.”

“Apparently Ardas are all terrible.”

“They’ll get less terrible now.” Maitimo hugs him. He feels nothing like Maedhros as he was at the end, but a little like he used to be, thousands of years ago. Puts Fingon in mind of looking up to his much older and he-thought-back-then wiser cousin, which given how long ago he stopped seeing Maedhros that way and how young Maitimo is feels very disorienting. “Yours is lucky to have you free of Valinor again.”

It’s a reminder that to this Maitimo the Valar are an unalloyed horror, that this isn’t just a younger version of his Maedhros who used to see them as part mixed blessing, part simple fact of the world to be managed or worked around as needed. But. Well. “Yeah,” he says, because he can’t argue anymore that they haven’t often been wrong, and cruel, and shortsighted, and responsible by act and by omission for countless deaths and countless people spending countless years in torment and they are personally responsible by their curse for tears unnumbered—

Maitimo holds him tighter.

“Yeah,” Fingon says again. “Sometimes I hate them, too. I think of him in Mandos sometimes—it seems designed to torture him in particular—still would’ve been better to send him there when he asked—”

“Yes, it would’ve.”

“You’d’ve done it, wouldn’t you.”

“Would’ve been the merciful thing—the safe thing, too. No one gets out of Angband without his leave, released or ‘escaped’ or ‘rescued’—people get out if he wants them out. But our Enemy tipped his hand much sooner—we knew more that early in the war. If you’d had enough information to know by then, he’d’ve had enough information not to go to the parley.”

“I thought we knew then…” But they didn’t, not really. Not that it would have changed their fate if they had—though another few centuries with Maedhros still whole wouldn’t have been nothing, if.

Maitimo touches his fingertips to Fingon’s temple, near his hair, and pauses, waiting for a response. Fingon shivers. Maitimo cups his cheek instead, for a moment, then drops his hand.

“Could you have done it?” Maitimo asks. “Gone on without him, if you’d killed him then?”

“I think so.” If people’d needed him. Which they do, now, whole worlds full of them.

“I couldn’t’ve. If it’d been my Findekano in Angband, I couldn’t’ve done it and kept fighting.”

And Maitimo’s Findekano isn’t in Angband and probably isn’t dead, but he’s gone somehow, somewhere, and Maitimo isn’t facing so crushingly hopeless a war but he’s still alone.

For whatever reason, this Maitimo has problems that feel familiar and fixable. Probably—depending on how long ago it was and how well he’s adapted, but probably—he has a Fingon-shaped hole in his administration somewhere. And there are certainly ways it’s uncomfortable and uncanny, talking to this ghost of what might have been, but they’ve managed well enough so far.

Maitimo stays another few hours, cuddling and talking, and Fingon is glad to have him. When he leaves, Fingon finally starts reading up on Ardas, looking for the one he’s already decided he’s going to move to.


End file.
